The Black Bandit
by The Unplanner
Summary: Luna finds the power of Septima, but the terrible cost of losing control drives her from her home and family. Can she make a new life with QUILL, or will she succumb to tragedy against their strange new enemies?
1. Meet and Greet

**The Black Bandit**

**A Gunvolt fanfiction**

**Chapter 1: Meet and Greet**

I remembered that day perfectly, the day Septima was discovered. I was eight, and the noise on the TV didn't mean much to me. I was sitting at the table (faux wood, four legs. Everyone knows what a table looks like), rolling a pencil back and forth between my hands, when inevitably the pencil rolled out of my grasp. By the way, my name is Lu. It's short for Luna, but I had one friend and three anime characters named Luna. Anyway, back to the pencil.

Reaching out to it, I tried to will it back to me. It was such a simple thing, making that globe of absolute blackness appear near my open palm. It drew in the pencil, but didn't move my long, black hair. I suddenly heard a rumbling sound, and it broke my concentration. The TV in the kitchen was wobbling off the countertop, but it stopped on the edge when I stopped powering the black sphere. Where did that energy come from? For that matter, where did it go? It was like my brain was tired, but even as I thought that, the energy came back. I decided to ask Mom about it after I replaced the TV on the counter. After all, Mom knew everything about everything...right?

It turned out I was an "adept", a person who could control a strange force called Septima. Every adept had a different septimal skill, from shooting flames to bringing back the dead. My control over gravity was called "Macrocosm." The name came to me as soon as I wondered what it was. At least it didn't come with a split personality, like some adepts got. With it, I could use energy tracked as EP (energy points) to pull in everything around me. Alternately, by touching something or shooting it with a bolt of black energy, I could make that object or person the center of the pull. I could also "push" by reversing gravity, to jump in midair, push things around, or block solid weapons like bullets. Gravity Armor is the name I gave that last effect. I learned I was doing that all the time the first time someone shot me, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

My mom explained about adepts and told me that what I had was special, but very dangerous. She forbade me from using my Septima where other people could be hurt. I agreed readily; I was young and innocent then. I spent seven years hiding what I was, going to classes with other kids that only looked just like me. I practiced using my power in secret, and steadily gained more control. The problem was, as I grew, so did my Septima, until the slightest dip in control might spawn a black hole and bring down a whole room. And one day, it did.

One of my friends, Luna II, was enrolled in the Paranormal Club at school. She caught me after class, and told me she'd been watching me practice my Septima in my garden for several days. She just wanted to know how I did it for the Club, but my fear of discovery got the better of me. Getting caught would be the death of me.

It was no secret that adepts were often carted off by the Sumeragi Group to have God knows what done to them. Some were never seen again. Some came back out as officers in Sumeragi's organization, but their septimosome, the part of their body that processed septimal energy, was taken and put in a blade called a Glaive to contain their power and make them effectively normal humans, unless Sumeragi said they could release their power. The whole process was creepy, and known to be flawed. Sometimes Glaives broke, and their adepts went wild until they were put down. This was one reason Sumeragi kept capturing new adepts, to refine their Glaive technology. But I refused to be their guinea pig.

In my shock at being discovered, my control slipped and a black hole formed in front of me. "Ah! Run!" I screamed over the groaning support beams to try and save Luna II, but she never stood a chance. She was sucked in by her long, pink-dyed hair and instantly compressed to a geometric point. I finally got my Septima under control, but I was now a murderer.

I fled the school in a random direction, bouncing teachers and emergency crews off of me. I ran until I couldn't run anymore, then pulled myself to a dark corner and collapsed. I had killed my friend in a second's lapse of control. I couldn't stay near people anymore, but I didn't have anywhere to go. It was there that I was found by QUILL.

The Quorum for Unrestricted Information, Law, and Liberty was a pro-adept, anti-Sumeragi group that was all over the media as a group of terrorists. I didn't know how much of the propaganda to believe, but Zeno, a low-level adept in QUILL, didn't seem all that bad. He was carrying a huge rifle, and he was obviously headed somewhere important, but when he saw me there, crying in an alleyway, he skidded to a stop and asked, "Hey, kid, what's wrong? Why are you skipping school?"

"I killed her. I killed her..."

"Wait, are you an adept? I've seen that look before. Geeves was just like that before joining us at QUILL."

"You'll... you'll die if my control slips even a bit. Black holes, gravity wells. Heh." My mind was slipping into a pit of guilt, and I started giggling.

"Kid? Hey, um... Luna! Stop it!" Zeno shook me by the shoulders, shaking me out of my slide to insanity.

"Huh? How do you know my name? And I prefer Lu, anyway." Kind of off-topic, but it distracted my from the guilt.

"Your nametag, Lu. Oh?" Zeno pulled out a cell phone. "Yeah, this is Zeno. I hear ya, boss man. I know the mission, but there's an adept girl here in the alley. Oh? Gotcha, boss man. I'll tell her. Zeno out." He put the phone back in his pocket. "Sorry 'bout that. The boss man, Asimov, wants me to tell you that we've got an open bunk at QUILL. You need a place to stay?" He put out his hand, an invitation to help pull me up.

"...Will it be safe?" I asked, not taking the offered hand just yet. I wiped the tears out of my deep, black eyes.

"Well, I can't promise that. It is the safest place there is for adepts like us, though. I kinda need to hit a Sumeragi warehouse, but I can tell you where we live." He rummaged around in his pocket, then re-offered his hand, this time with a slip of slightly crumpled paper in it.

"Thanks, Zeno. I'll go." This time, I took his hand, and he pulled me up.

"Looking forward to working with you, Lu! See ya!" Zeno dashed off, making up for lost (but not wasted) time.

The QUILL HQ was surprisingly well-equipped, once I got in past its dreary exterior. It looked like an old warehouse on the waterfront from the outside, but inside was all metal hallways and automatic doors. I entered unimpeded, having walked only a few blocks to get there. Nobody was at the entrance to greet me, but I saw a camera just inside the doors. I waved at the camera and called, "Hello? QUILL people? I'm Lu, here on recommendation from Zeno. Where is everyone?"

A voice sounded from a hidden speaker. "Hello, Lu. Were you followed? I'm Moniqa, the operator and mission navigator here."

"No, I don't think anyone followed me. I checked several times."

"Good. Take the hall down to the first door on the left, and we'll do introductions and orientation."

I found the door,and it slid open to a room with only two people in it. "Is this everyone? There are only three of you?"

"Four," said the blue-haired man with the awesome visor. "Gunvolt is on a separate mission from Zeno, so you'll have to meet him later. I'm Asimov, leader of the Quorum for Unrestricted Information, Law, and Liberty. The woman behind the workstation is Moniqa. I need your agreement to follow our orders, if you plan to join us. That means you get orders from Moniqa, and only I can countermand them, no matter what they are. Is that clear?" Asimov stated the last sentence with an air of military command, so I responded with the only military phrase I knew.

"Yes, sir!"


	2. Super Spy

**The Black Bandit**

**Chapter 2: Super Spy**

I was assigned to a training course in QUILL's high-tech simulator. The exercise involved guns, but they didn't give me one. "First, let's see how sneaky you are. Stealth is important for a small group like ours," Moniqa spoke over the system speakers. The training simulator consisted of a helmet and an array of cables that let me run in place to run in the sim, among other things. I nodded, and dove behind a misplaced crate to listen for guards.

Sure enough, metal boots clanked around the bend in the hallway just ahead. The simulated guard turned into my corridor, and I tripped him into a gravity well. Squish! Guard pancake!

I peeked around the corner; if someone discovered the puddle, I'd be in trouble. Nobody was coming, but a security camera was swinging my way. I ducked back around the corner, then dashed down the hall behind the camera as it swung back around the other way, having compressed the remaining mess behind me.

A guard post was just ahead, but the guard was off duty and asleep at the desk. I noticed a conveniently teenager-sized air vent on the wall, one I pried open with a clang. I almost froze at that, but thought better of it and clambered into the vent before the guard could rouse himself. Behind me, I crushed the vent cover with a quickly evaporated black hole, so the guard wouldn't notice the discarded metal. Interestingly, when something is crushed instantly by a black hole, it makes no sound.

Feeling like one of those movie spies, I crawled through the ventilation system toward the target on my HUD. I found the closest opening, then peered out. Ha! All the guards were outside this room, thinking an intruder would use the only door. I was free to touch the security mainframe, then crush it with my Septima. Alarms blared briefly, but the guards ran the other way, expecting an intruder from the gates. I waited five seconds, then crawled out through the vent to the back of the now-darkened building. MISSION SUCCESSFUL, my HUD displayed.

As the simulation faded to black, I was disconnected from the training apparatus. Moniqa called on my personal radio, "Amazing! How did you get that on the first try?"

"Um... I play a lot of video games?" I had honestly never tried to put those hours of stealth games into practice before, but I guessed the simulator was close enough that it worked. It helped that the difficulty of this sim was way below my usual fare, too.

"Excellent," Asimov added. "You're a perfect fit for our stealth operations. I should mention that Zeno took three tries to ace that one, and Gunvolt took seven. He just can't get into a stealthy mindset... All that makes you our best covert agent, at least in theory."

"I hope I can hold up to your standards in a real fight, sir," I replied. "I might not be able to kill a real person so easily, especially after that first time, when Zeno found me."

"Perhaps we should continue this conversation in person, Luna. It seems like a touchy subject."

"Yes, sir. Could you call me Lu, though? Luna's a name I associate with anime characters."

"Acknowledged, Lu. Meet me in the Operations Room. Asimov out." Click. The radio went silent.

In the Operations Room, I saw that Zeno and another boy with a long, orange-yellow braid and blue armor had shown up. I extended my hand, saying, "Hello, you must be Gunvolt. I'm Lu, the newest recruit."

"Acknowledged." He didn't shake my hand, so I dropped it.

"Geeves is always like that, all business," Zeno said.

"And you're never business enough," Moniqa cut in.

"Hey, I'm plenty business! Did you get the results from my last mission?"

"Yes, it does seem like the intel is valid. We should probably send Gunvolt to check the 1st Sumeragi building for the Muse."

"Seconded. Deleting the Muse takes priority," Asimov agreed.

"Wait, is this the same Muse that's on the radio every day? I always avoided that channel, because I know an addictive drug when I see one-or hear one. I didn't want to grow dependent on it, but is it really that dangerous?" I asked.

"Yes," Asimov replied. "Sumeragi uses the reaction to the Muse's song to track down adepts for capture. It needs to be deleted, or we're all in danger."

"That's Gunvolt's mission, not yours," Moniqa said, "but we have your gear all set up." Zeno grinned and tossed a bundle that was deceptively heavy my way. I caught it, but stumbled under its weight.

"Get changed in the room two doors down, Lu. I'd pay big Vig to see that, but I'd probably get slapped," Zeno chuckled. Moniqa slapped him anyway.

"I knew you were low on professionalism, Zeno, but I didn't know you were into that stuff. She's underage, just for starters." Moniqa admonished. Blushing hard, I stepped out of the Operations Room and down the hall to get changed, making sure the door hissed shut behind me.

The uniform fit perfectly, a testament to Moniqa's skill at split-second analysis and foresight. It consisted of a padded, black bodysuit under a shiny black vest bearing QUILL's logo and made of some strong, light alloy. I wore fingerless gloves, also black, along with dark gray shorts over the lower half of the bodysuit, and a pair of simple, gray boots. My first thought was that I looked pretty cool. My second thought was that I looked kind of like a Power Ranger. It functioned well enough, though.

I returned to the Operations Room and was greeted by Zeno at the door. "Hey, Lu, looking good! Geeves already left for the 1st Sumeragi building, and Moniqa's in full Mission Support Mode. I'd avoid breaking her concentration if I were you. I'm pretty sure this will be the last mission today, so I'll show you to the barracks."

"Got it." I fell into step beside him. "So, did the QUILL uniform always look like Power Rangers gear, or is this a recent thing?"

"Nah, the uniform was always pretty much the same, but we recently 'acquired' a stash of Shock Response Plate from Sumeragi, courtesy of yours truly. Before that, there wasn't any armor at all, so stealth was a really big deal. Hence the simulations. By the way, congrats on your high score, Lu! I wish I had awesome gravity powers. My Septima is Regeneration, which heals wounds on other people and myself. Useful for a lightly-armored demolitions expert like me, not so useful for stealth kills. Plus, I'm usually on my own during missions, so I can't really be the squad medic if there's no squad."

"My Septima used to be pretty fun, yes, but it's been getting stronger and stronger as I get older, and it takes more effort to _not_ create a black hole nowadays than it does to crush everything around me. It's like the default for Macrocosm-that's what my Septima's called-became 'on' instead of 'off' at some point. It was about a year ago that I noticed. I don't form gravity wells in my sleep, which is nice, but I have to hold myself back every waking moment, or what happened at school will happen again." I shuddered, seeing Luna II's final expression of absolute mortal terror in front of me.

"...You were going to say something about that after the sim, right? Then Asimov called you over, and never really discussed it. What happened, exactly?"

I froze. No, better to tell him. He needed to know how much danger he was in. "I'd been attending school while hiding that I was an adept. I thought I was doing pretty well; I only ever practiced with Macrocosm in my home garden, and never slipped up at school. But my friend, Luna II, had seen me at some point and wanted to know what I was doing to write a paper for the Paranormal Club. Yes, Luna II is a nickname. Her name's Luna, too, get it? We came up with the nicknames when we became friends. But right when she caught me, I got scared that I would be ratted out to Sumeragi and used for their Glaive experiments. I lost control and brought down the whole room. Luna II fell into the event horizon and died instantly... I hope it was instant, anyway. Even I don't know what goes on in a black hole, but I hope she didn't suffer. So, then I ran out of school, and you found me in the alley. Good thing you did, because I was considering jumping in a black hole myself right then." I waited for him to gasp, step back, or something, but he surprised me.

Zeno laid a hand on my shoulder, and knelt down to catch my gaze. "It's good that you told me. That sort of thing can't just stay bottled up. I mean, Geeves does a good job of it, but he's going to blow any day now. Might even be during this mission, who knows? Asimov actually rescued him from a Sumeragi lab, so we know you were right to be afraid of them. He was tortured and experimented on so much that he doesn't even remember his name anymore. 'Gunvolt' is an alias based on his Septima, a rare one called Azure Striker, which pairs with his gun to zap people. It shortens to GV, which I shortened further to Geeves. Anyway, if he can pick himself up from something like that, and make a new life here at QUILL, I know you can do the same. Here we are at the barracks." Zeno gestured to the lines of doors. "You bunk on the left side of the hall, second door down. The first door is Moniqa's room, and we guys bunk on the right. Don't go into Moniqa's room by accident. She's not actually an adept, but she jam near killed me when I discovered her shrine to Asimov in there."

"'Shrine?'" I had an idea where this was going, but it seemed like a good way to shake my depression for a second.

"Yeah. Everyone here looks up to Asimov. At first, he was the only guy in the entire world who had the guts to stand against Sumeragi. He's got charisma to spare, too, and he's even better than Moniqa at strategy. The boss man has a list of talents that just goes on and on, along with a few mysteries. No one knows what his Septima is, for one thing. We know he has one, but he never uses it, and he doesn't talk about it. Ever. Don't ask, or you'll get assigned to cleaning duty until your hands fall off." Zeno smirked, but I guessed he was speaking from experience. "Anyway, Moniqa takes looking up to Asimov to an extreme, though you'd never guess it when she's on the job. In that room, though, every available surface has a poster on it, and several journals and diaries are full of theories and even _fanfiction_ about the boss man's 'heroic exploits'. I'm pretty sure Asimov knows, and I know because I accidentally went in without knocking when she forgot to lock her door. I almost gagged on the fangirl fumes in there, and then Moniqa came back in. Bad day all around. Like I said, don't mention it, don't even think about it. It'd be best to forget all about what I just told you if you want to keep all your limbs intact." Zeno shuddered and rubbed his shoulder. Did Moniqa actually break his bones? Yikes!

I carefully considered my response. "What were we talking about again?"

"Exactly. I'm going back to the Operations Room, but you should probably get some sleep. With any luck, Geeves will be done with his mission before you wake up." Zeno turned around, waved over his shoulder, and disappeared down the hall. I opened the door to my new room, and looked it over.

It was a pretty typical military bunk: one plain bed, a footlocker, and a desk on the other side of the room. QUILL wasn't big enough for me to have to share a room with anyone. On the desk was a simple datapad, derived from the old tablets of yesteryear. It didn't have any data on it, so I guessed it was supposed to be my journal or diary. I opened the footlocker and found some white nightshirts and slippers in there, along with a second uniform and a bunch of underwear. I changed into the nightclothes and climbed into bed, falling asleep in moments.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

_A/N: Rather than find a way to reply to guest reviews, I'll just answer the three anonymous people asking whether I'd continue this by letting the chapter speak for itself. A few notes:_

_I'll be using "Gunvolt swears." That means words like "jitt," "gack," and "jam." Because gack that jitt. Those ordinary curse words can go to keck._

_I'll be splitting the missions from the game among Lu and Gunvolt, and describing Lu's missions only. Gunvolt will get results from his missions, and QUILL will talk about them, but his story has been told already, and I'm not telling it again._

_Zeno's an adept, but his Septima skill is unknown, at least as far as I've researched. So the "Regeneration" I gave him will be what he has for the purposes of this fic._

_I plan to introduce other OC adepts to the mix. There are many possible uses for Septima that the game couldn't cover, like ice powers or time manipulation. Those examples aren't guaranteed to become OC's, but I'd like to hear your approval/suggestions for new players to shake things up! My current idea for a naming theme is to use colors (the Black Bandit is Lu, of course). The Sumeragi officers are based on the Seven Deadly Sins, but all seven have been used already, so new blood is in order! "Blood" in a literal sense, if I can come up with a good backstory for a vampire adept._

_Chapter 3 is coming soon! Some of it is already written, so it might even be "soon" as in "today!"_


	3. Standard Issues

**The Black Bandit**

_Author's Notes: It's been a while since I wrote Chapter 1. I know I promised I'd work on _Silver Linings._ Instead, though, about ten different plotbunnies piled onto my head and demanded attention. This was one of them, along with the rest of Chapter 2, which has been sitting on my hard drive for ages. Hopefully, the things I've written during the delay helped improve my overall writing ability._

**Chapter 3: Standard Issues**

The next day, I woke up to the most horrific racket imaginable. Turns out there was an alarm clock built into the bed. It blared only a few times, but that was more than enough to rip me out of bed and get me frantically searching for the snooze button. Not that I'd have time for an extra five minutes of sleep in a guerrilla rebellion group like QUILL, but I didn't want to listen to five alarm klaxons before getting it to shut up next time. Having located the controls in question, I got dressed in the uniform before heading out. There hadn't really been an orientation to tell me what to do at the start of the day, aside from Zeno's walk-and-talk yesterday afternoon. That reminded me that I must have been sleeping a while. Getting up at 6 AM would have been harder if I'd been short on sleep, sonic bomb alarm or not.

I couldn't quite remember my dreams, if I had any. That was probably a good thing, given the trauma from yesterday. No, not thinking about that right now.

Not knowing where else to go, I went for the Operations Room. Moniqa was there, but she told me to go back down the hall right to the end for breakfast. Oops. I almost missed the most important meal of the day! There went my image of competence.

I finally made it to the large-ish lounge that QUILL used as a cafeteria. There was cereal and milk, along with bread for toasting. I picked up a bowl of my favorite, Luigi-O's (motto: "Even my cereal sounds like Mario!"), and brought it to the table where Zeno and Asimov sat. Someone was missing, though.

"Hey, Lu! Glad to see you got a good night's rest." Zeno greeted me.

"I apologize for not distributing the orientation document. The procedure for getting new members hasn't really been finalized since there are so few of us," Asimov explained. He handed me a little fold-up map and schedule, which basically covered what I'd done so far and ended with "7:30 A.M. to 8:00 P.M.: On call." I guess that was when the missions came in.

I asked, "Hey, where's Gunvolt? Did he get through the mission okay yesterday?"

I must have said something wrong, because Asimov's expression darkened immediately, noticeable even through his awesome blue visor.

Zeno growled, "Yeah, he made it through. But rather than delete the Muse, he learned she was an adept that Sumeragi held captive, not an AI program like we thought. So Geeves ran off with this 'Joule' girl and quit QUILL altogether! And here I thought we were buds..."

Asimov spoke up. "To be fair, we can still expect his help. Not much has changed besides his place of residence now that he's gone 'freelance.' I doubt he'll find many jobs elsewhere suited to his particular skills, so we'll be his main source of income. I figured I would give the boy his space. He's probably going through some sort of puberty-related emotional stress, and we can't afford to turn such a valuable fighter against us, even if he wasn't an adoptive son to me."

Zeno laughed. "That's Asimov for you! See how he can go from ruthlessly effective, to awkward dad, and back to ruthless in half a minute? The man's amazing."

"I hope that was a compliment, Zeno," Asimov said with a level tone and no expression. Zeno hastily appeased him.

"Totally, boss man! You're a master multitalent, is what I was trying to say!"

I spoke up at last. "So, if Gunvolt's...less here than he was yesterday, does that mean the rest of us will get more missions to compensate?"

"Yes. More on that after breakfast. Eat up; you have a round in the Firing Range to do, then we'll figure out which of the missions we have stacked up would be the best fit for you." Asimov had already finished his own bowl of PokeCrunchies (Motto: "Gotta crunch 'em all!") somehow, despite spending the last minute or so speaking. He put his bowl on a conveyor belt and left the room.

Zeno commented on the phenomenon with his mouth full of Smash Bran (motto: "In a battle of all-stars, choose your health!"). "QUILL's Seven Asimov Mysteries, Number 4. No one has ever seen the boss man do anything that wastes time he could be spending in the Operations Room. If he needs to eat, he's already done eating."

I finished my last swallow before answering. "He _is_ impressive. What are the other six Asimov Mysteries?"

While Zeno walked me over to the firing range, he went over the Seven Asimov Mysteries. "First is his unknown Septima, of course. Second is his hair; he doesn't dye it blue, but it's not exactly natural. Third is the fact that he never yawns or shows fatigue. Fourth is his legendary ability to never waste time. Fifth is the contents of his room; I've never seen inside and I don't have a key. Sixth is his parents; even Sumeragi's databases don't know where he grew up. Seventh is the 'mystery' mystery; why do I call them the Seven Mysteries when there are only six?"

I laughed with him. "Mysterious, indeed!" We arrived at the Firing Range, which was next door to the stealth simulator. Along the wall were all sorts of firearms, from big two-handed machine guns like Zeno's and sniper rifles like Asimov's to smaller pistols.

"Standard gear includes a pistol; you get ten shots a clip, and we can spare you two reloads each mission. Don't shoot with it unless you can surprise the enemy; it's kind of ineffective against armor. Luckily the shots are pretty quiet, so you can stealth-kill guards without bringing a whole facility to high alert. Hold the gun like this, brace like this, and try to stay calm while aiming. Freaking out will throw off your aim." Zeno guided my hands to the right positions, and I took aim at the bulls-eye on the far wall, which was about fifteen meters away. BANG! A red spot appeared just below the center of the target. "Nice shot, Lu! 80 points! Try aiming a little higher; it looks like the crosshairs are misaligned a bit." I adjusted my aim and fired again. Bulls-eye! "Jam, you're a fast learner!"

"I learned to aim while practicing my Septima," I responded. "I used to have to toss an energy bolt at things to make them the center of a gravity well, but I've gotten better at judging distance manually, so I don't need the bolts anymore. Looks like I can still aim projectiles well enough, though." BANG! BANG! Two more 90-point hits.

Zeno applauded. "Good form, Lu! Now let's see how you handle a real weapon..." The target moved back twenty more meters, and Zeno handed me a rifle just like his. I nearly fell over; this thing was heavy!

"I don't think I could use this in the field." I put the rifle back, then looked over the rack for something lighter. I noticed an Uzi-like sub-machine gun near the bottom of the rack, and picked it up.

"Careful with the recoil on that thing. The last time I used it, I nearly fell over. We still haven't repaired the bullet holes in the ceiling here." Zeno pointed up at several holes in the ceiling.

"Huh. I guess you're right. Do we have some kind of stun rod here? I know a lot of Sumeragi troops don't have any ranged weapons, and the ones that do fire slow-moving projectiles. I could get in close with a sword or something, since they'd be marching straight at me anyway." I could see it now, actually. I'd been part of the Sharp Object Fan Club at school (the whole extracurricular catalog was pretty eccentric). Part of the club activities was learning the basics of offense and defense with foam-wrapped weapons. Luna II had dreamed of being a ghost duster, whatever those were, but I preferred more practical pursuits like dragon-slaying.

"Actually, we do have a couple beam sabers. Here, show me your moves!" Zeno tossed me a deactivated hilt, and I pressed the button to bring it to life. The two-foot, red cone of plasma would melt through just about anything I tried to whack with this sword. I gave it a few practice swings at a safe distance from Zeno. Overhead slice, horizontal right side cut, diagonal up-right, another overhead slice, thrust. I watched the crimson blade leave a short trail behind it and bend slightly as it moved. Zeno clapped. "Good offense there, Lu! Now let's test your defense. Try and bat away the projectiles from this drone." He pressed a button on the wall, and out of what I assumed was another bullet hole in the ceiling came a small, cone-shaped training drone. "He'll fire at regular intervals. The projectiles travel as fast as those from a standard Sumeragi rifle, but they'll just sting a bit if you miss. Three, two... Oh, whatever. Go!"

The drone fired before Zeno said "Go," so I had to twist out of the way and be ready for the next shot. These Sumeragi-based shots really did travel slowly; it was a simple matter to get out of the way, and even easier to interpose my blade and bat the shots aside. Zeno ramped up the difficulty three times before finally getting impressed. By now the drone was shooting five shots in a burst from slightly different angles. It was a matter of starting to sweep them aside from the right direction, since there was only one source in motion rather than a group shooting out of sync. "Okay," I said after Round Four was cleared. "Do you think I can handle a mission now?"

"That...was awesome. You've got to teach me some of those moves sometime! Okay, one more round and we head off to the briefing. Round Five is the hardest training level for one drone; you ready?"

"Bring it on."

This time the pesky drone fired bursts of three shots, zipping around my sides to force me to defend from all angles. I was doing pretty well until one of the deflected shots hit the drone. It fell to the ground smoking. "Oops."

"What do you mean, 'Oops?' Do that more often! Sure, we only have a couple training drones, and they're kind of flimsy, so practice on the Sumeragi dogs next! By the way, here." Zeno handed me a canteen full of cool water. I took a long sip of it, which tasted great after the morning's exercise. "Keep the canteen. I was supposed to give it to you with the uniform, anyway. We are so rusty at getting fresh blood on board..."

I nodded. "Yeah, you'd think there would be lines of adepts fleeing from Sumeragi right into our arms, or at least a larger organization already here. The TV propaganda tends to make QUILL look like a huge terrorist movement destroying residential buildings left and right." It might have been believable if the bombs dropped from the "QUILL aircraft" weren't playing on such an obvious loop. They never even hit the generic burning building before jumping up to the bomb bay again. Still, the reality of QUILL was kind of underwhelming after the propaganda hyped it up five times a day.

"I don't get it either, but every revolution has to start somewhere, right? Might as well be with us. Let's get down to the Operations Room and see where we can help." We went.

Moniqa looked surprised when we walked in. "7:30 on the dot! Who are you and what have you done with Zeno?"

Zeno pretended to faint. "You wound me, milady! We were just finished up picking out Lu's gear. She opted for the beam sword."

"And? Can she use it effectively?" Asimov asked.

"She bats a perfect score on Level Five! Or it would have been, if the drone hadn't been hit with a reflected bolt. I think she's ready for prime time! Her marks with the pistol are a bit lower, but still fine for dealing with Sumeragi cannon fodder." Zeno clapped me on the shoulder; I blushed a bit from the praise.

"Okay, if you think you're prepared, Lu, there's a couple places we need to hit today." Moniqa brought three locations up on the main screen; one was grayed out. "That third location is Gunvolt's target today; we need him to take out Viper's chemical plant. Lu, you're going to this submarine dock in Sector 3; we need to confirm some intel about a giant nuclear sub being built there, and if it is, destroy it. Zeno, you're to investigate the rumors of a haunted warehouse two blocks down the street from our base. If Sumeragi's camped that close to us, they need to go."

"Doesn't the 'haunted warehouse' sound more like a stealth gig?" Zeno asked.

"No, the haunted part is supposed to be below. So your job today is to lay some charges to open a path to the deeper facility. We'll have GV handle that tomorrow...if possible." Moniqa removed the briefing info from the screen. "No telling if he'll be available, but probably. Anyway, you have thirty minutes to get prepped. When you're ready, get moving to the co-ordinates on your datapad."

"Oh! I sort of thought the datapad was a journal or something, so I left it in my room. I'll just go grab that and be off, then. Is there some sort of protocol for ending meetings?"

"...Not really. We're not quite as organized as we'd like to be, as I'm sure you've noticed." Moniqa looked embarrassed by the state of their (_our, _I was in the group now!) recruitment procedures.

"I'll be working on that problem while you two are out on these missions," Asimov said. "I can't just sit here and stare at this screen all day, so I'll refine our standard operating procedure. Get moving, you two." He returned his gaze to his personal monitor.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

_A/N: And here's Chapter 3! The next chapter will cover Merak's level, and maybe some stuff leading up to the level after it. Merak was my favorite of Sumeragi's Robot Master analogues. He's just so chill! Which is a nice way of saying he's the laziest man in the world, but he's got the right idea. No sense dying when there are death traps and minions willing to do it for you. He just underestimated how fast GV can climb. Lu's powers aren't hampered by water, but she's not immune to drowning..._


	4. Game On

**The Black Bandit**

**Chapter 4: Game On**

_A/N: I should definitely be working on _Silver Linings_, too, and I do have most of the next chapter written. But I envisioned Lu calling Merak out for being a casual gamer in addition to being the human incarnation of laziness, and this whole chapter grew from there. I handled some of Merak's stage a bit differently, since if he could send you into a corridor full of bad guys with his Wormhole ability, why would he just let you back out if you got to the end of it? It does seem likely that he created the whole room the trap sends you to, since the camera is askew in those sections, and that must drain some serious EP. I also altered Merak's Lazy Laser haiku a bit to fit the right meter. I think Copen's Doppler Desire haiku also has a slightly non-standard meter._

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

The first thing I did after receiving my briefing was go to my room and retrieve my datapad, along with a small, gray backpack to hold it. Looking inside the bag, I found a bunch of little disk-shaped objects. I fiddled with the datapad and found the call button. "Testing, one, two... Okay. Lu here. Are the disks in this bag some kind of bombs?"

"Affirmative," Moniqa responded. "You'll be using those to disable or destroy any Sumeragi projects you find at their dock. You'll want to cover your ears when they go off."

"Roger. I'm on my way there." I dashed out of QUILL headquarters, then immediately slowed down to try and look nonchalant for the passerby in the next street, despite wearing a Power Ranger suit.

After the third time I caught a weird look, I decided not to try hiding in plain sight, and instead ducked into a dark alley to boost myself onto a rooftop. I'd never tried to jump that high before, and it took a couple aborted tries to clear the wall. I was sure I'd get better at that application of Macrocosm soon. Meanwhile, I located the target area on my datapad and jumped from roof to roof to reach the harbor. Luckily, QUILL HQ and the dock in question were both on the waterfront, so I didn't need to cross the whole city or anything.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

Inside the building, which was similar to QUILL HQ but less rundown-looking, there was only an elevator platform going down. Having only one entrance meant I couldn't sneak in undetected...except I did. No guards, no cameras, no security here. Maybe the stealth simulator was actually harder than Sumeragi's usual fare?

Walking down the hall was mostly uneventful, except for the nice undersea view behind the large windows. The only enemies I encountered were a few small drones that hovered straight toward me to try and deliver some kind of touch attack. I didn't let them manage it, of course; my beam sword took care of them in one swing each.

*Clunk, clunk...* A guard's footsteps echoed from around a corner. I ducked behind an exposed pipe and peeked at the nuisance. He was just wandering back and forth, and judging from the way his head bobbed up and down, he was listening to music under his face-concealing helmet. Were they really not expecting intruders? I waited for him to turn around, then took aim with my pistol and popped him in the head.

Ouch, I didn't expect that much blood! Their helmets must have been just for show; what should have been armor didn't protect him at all. Well, at least he was a faceless, punch-clock minion, not someone I knew or cared to know. I walked past him (or her; the Sumeragi guard uniform was thick enough to conceal gender, too) while trying not to look at the mess.

Just as I was beginning to think this whole operation would be easier than waking up tomorrow, a huge black wormhole with rippling edges opened right in front of me. I tried to brace myself, but I was sucked in.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

"*That was easy enough. Okay, fifteen seconds. Just hold still and die so I can go back to bed.*" A voice came over a hidden speaker as I found myself in a long hallway with no exits. The place was filled to the brim with Sumeragi guards and robots, some of whom noticed me immediately and raised their guns. Interestingly, the rest of the guards and even the robots looked just as disoriented as I was; they must have been pulled into this trap to deal with me right when I was. I jumped to the side to dodge the first volley of gunfire, then activated my beam sword and charged in. I blocked two shots, then flipped gravity under a group of grunts in the rear to distract them while I cut open the front lines. A small, rolling robot managed to move fast enough to clear my field by sheer momentum, but stopped on my blade. I used its momentum to spin around and club a turret, then flipped gravity back to its normal direction...plus a little extra oomph. The guards I had trapped on the ceiling fell prone, and I stabbed four of them in the back while they were down. I was going to attack the fifth, but then another wormhole opened under my feet, and I fell back to where I'd been sucked in originally.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

"Huh? Why did they let me go?"

"*You're probably wondering why I just let you out of that trap. Really, it's just a pain to hold that room together. You'll probably die in the next one.*" The speaker fell silent again. There was clearly a Sumeragi adept, and a powerful one, in charge of this facility. How far away could he lay those traps?

"Well, thanks for the heads-up about the other traps, dude." I muttered as I continued onward, past a few lifts that moved up and down on a timer and a pit of spikes with a few hovering platforms over it. I augmented my jump to skip a few platforms without falling, then stuck to the side wall to dodge a turret waiting at the far end. It wasn't configured to rotate beyond the line of floating platforms, so I got close and cut the fixed gun open. Running on walls was one of the best ways to use Macrocosm for movement, though it drained my EP pretty quickly to sustain the altered gravity direction for a long time, so I usually used it to sprint along walls for a short distance before jumping off or up. Shortly after breaking the turret, there was another wormhole to another fifteen-second brawl. After curb-stomping the guards in that one, I took a long breath to cool down and concentrated to restore my EP.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

There was a dim hallway ahead, with no pretty underwater windows. "I guess I can't expect the same kinds of traps here, huh. Wait, what's that gurgling sound...?" Looking down through a grate in the floor, I saw the water underneath me rising. "Oh jitt! Jump jump jump!" I threw caution to the wind and climbed the tall room as fast as I could, the rising water level following right below me. There were a few platforms that would have been out of reach for a normal jump, but that was no problem with a few edits to gravity. I would have simply reversed gravity, but there were spikes on the ceiling, probably set there to impale anyone trying not to drown.

I almost hit those spikes anyway with a miscalculated super-jump, which would have made my heart miss a beat if it wasn't already pounding from trying to escape the rising water level. I dashed down a short hall to another tall room, barely pausing to recharge my EP before reversing gravity this time. I figured after the last near-failure that it would be easier to just set gravity back to normal and drop when I was close to the spikes, and I was right.

I got out of the dim section of the underwater base, and thankfully the water stopped rising a few feet below me. I nearly collapsed from relief, but I only got a few seconds to prop myself against a wall before more Sumeragi goons started shooting at me. "Why can't you guys leave me alone for five seconds?!" I ducked under a laser and unloaded a few pistol rounds into the pair of guards across the pool in front of me, which finally earned me a minute to breathe. "Note to self: work on physical endurance and lifting strength. This is not a job for the physically frail."

The last obstacle in the base was a deep pit. I couldn't quite see what waited at the bottom, but there weren't any spikes, so I hopped in...and fell through another wormhole. It deposited me in a wide open room at the sea floor. There certainly wasn't any nuclear submarine under construction here, though.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

A wormhole opened in front of me, and a brown-haired boy with blue headphones who looked about my age walked out of it, stretching like he'd just gotten out of bed. "Aw, man! Why did you have to survive? Would it have killed you to just drown?"

I stared at him. "Uh... Yeah, it definitely would have killed me to drown. But unlike you, I can bust a move when I try. Who are you, anyway? Where's the nuclear sub I'm supposed to be blowing up?"

"Ugh, you're going to make me monologue, too? I'm the Slothful Conjurer Merak, of the Sumeragi 7, prepare to blah blah blah. There's no sub. Look, I just wanna go back to my room and play some _Realms of Roboquest_. If you could hold still while I kill you, that'd be super."

I had to laugh at the ridiculousness of everything Merak had just said. What I chose to comment on was, "You play _Realms of Roboquest_? You casual noob. _Solid Stealth_ is so much more hardcore."

Merak, surprisingly, smiled in a pleased manner, as though I was finally speaking a language he understood. "Oh, I already beat _Solid Stealth III _into the ground. Good to know QUILL at least has good taste in games. Oh well, time to crush you. Request Glaive release. ID code: Unwavering Spirit." Merak held his right hand over his head, and a long black sword appeared in his grip, pointing straight up. Blue lines on its blade glowed as it released a wave of darkness that swirled around Merak and obscured him from view for a moment. When I could see him again, he was wearing black armor with blue stripes, including a couple horn-like metal pieces on his forehead. The most chilling parts of the Glaive transformation were his new facial features, though. His hair and irises had turned a vibrant light blue, and the whites of his eyes had turned pitch black, further adding to the demonic appearance lent by his armor. The first thing he did was open a wormhole in the air behind him, from which he called out a giant, robotic, heavy-fisted...chair? He hopped into it and lounged on the yellow seat, with his legs crossed and his cheek in his right hand. "You really didn't have to deep-six my chillax time, you know?"

I readied my beam sword, the crimson blade hissing as it snapped to life. "You certainly look chillaxed enough. You're not even going to stand up while you fight me, huh?"

"Now why would I fight you when my favorite chair can do it for me? Chair Punch!" That last command was to the chair, which floated towards me and extended the robotic fists at its sides to punch at the spot I definitely wasn't standing in anymore. The fists retracted on energy tethers. "Ugh, I told you to stand still. Now you get your turn to attack. Lame..."

"Awfully nice of you...and awfully dumb." I leaped into the air and brought my sword down right on Merak's head. He tried to bring his chair's arms up to block, but he wasn't fast enough, and I scored a direct hit right between his "horns." He didn't fall into two bloody halves like a lesser goon, though; a burst of purple energy knocked me away from him, and the only visible sign of damage was the dimmer glow of his armor's lines. I informed him, "Since you're being so polite, I'll let you know that this isn't a turn-based battle. We at QUILL run a strictly platformer/shooter operation for missions like these."

Merak groaned. "Oops, wrong genre. Now I only get one more saving burst before you can actually hurt me. Whatever. Wormhole Missile!" He opened a wormhole in front of him and presumably fired several missiles from his chair into it. What surprised me was that not one, but three wormholes opened in the room to release the projectiles. I almost ran into a stream of missiles while dodging another, and only a timely air dash saved me. When the wormholes vanished, Merak looked less apathetic and more ticked off. "Jam it, how did you dodge all that?"

"It wasn't easy, I'll give you that. I guess you can do more than just make a hole from point A to point B, huh?"

"Oh, I'm told there's all sorts of things I could do with Wormhole. I _made_ the point B in those battle traps, for one thing, and making three exits like that could probably clone people. It's way too much work to, you know, work on the possibilities. But at least I know an attack you have trouble dodging, so no big deal. Wormhole Missile!" He prepared the same barrage again, but I'd wizened up to this trick by now. I stood where I was until the holes appeared, then jumped behind Merak and grabbed onto his chair when he started firing. "Aw, you said you had a hard time with that one!" Merak's chair spun in place a few times, throwing me off. "Ugh, I'm gonna hurl..."

I winced as Merak actually threw up from the spinning, but used the opening to bring my sword down on him again. This time, though, his chair's arms were ready for me. I got smacked down hard, and barely rolled away from a second punch. "Well, I guess this means we're both learning," I called as I looked for a new opening.

"Gack learning. That's like work. Giant Punch!" The chair punched into a wormhole, and a very large wormhole opened beside Merak aimed right at my face. Not wanting to be hit by any attack called "Giant Punch", I super-jumped straight up as an enormous version of the chair's fist rammed out of the wormhole. I almost got hit by the second Giant Punch that came from the other direction as I landed, but instead I landed on top of the fist as it retracted. Oddly, when I passed through the wormhole right into melee range, I didn't shrink with the fist, so I was able to be properly intimidating when I stabbed Merak's face again. A second purple burst threw me off the chair, but now Merak's armor wasn't glowing at all. "Jitt! I'm out of saving bursts!" Merak slammed a fist on his armrest.

"Does that mean you're going to actually take this fight seriously now? You could die from my next hit, you know. Like, actually die. You're out of continues." I gathered some EP for a stronger attack in case Merak actually took out the stops. I knew I hadn't seen anything like his true power. I thought Macrocosm's ability to manipulate gravity was overpowered, but this Wormhole was by definition breaking the laws of physics rather than just bending them.

"Actually, no, I'm not going to take this seriously. I will break out a really cool move, though." Merak's chair opened a "mouth" below his seat, and the Sumeragi adept began to charge power in the chair's mechanical maw. Words began to echo in the air in Merak's voice, although he didn't move his mouth.

"Light whose fell pillars

Leave rifts in the wider world,

Lead to destruction. **LAZY LASER!**"

This was a common spectacle when an adept had to use their strongest powers. The media had a field day the first time an Offensive Skill was caught on video. I had a few of my own, which I planned to use if I could dodge this attack.

The open mouth of the chair launched a huge yellow laser straight over my head, not even trying to aim at me. Rather than burn through the wall, though, the beam went into a wormhole and came out on my left. I jumped forward to evade, but another wormhole extended the beam diagonally across my path, forcing me to air dash over it. The continuous beam kept crisscrossing the arena for three more jumps, until I was surrounded on all sides by blazing yellow death. I braced myself and said a quick thanks to whatever deity was listening that I had held the top score on the _Solid Stealth III _leaderboards until the day of my death, but it turned out that the beam petered out without jumping again. I mumbled another thank-you to the divines for doing me one better, then struck with my own attack.

"Once caught in the grip

Of the darkest void of space,

No one may survive. **BLACK HOLE!**"

I focused all my gathered Septimal power into a point right in front of Merak's face, then expanded the field to encompass the entire room. I was unaffected, but all the light from the fluorescent lamps overhead was sucked into the black hole I created. The walls creaked and groaned in the darkness, and Merak pushed his chair's thrusters to the very limit to try to flee into a wormhole, but his chair finally gave out under the stress just as my attack faded. Merak crashed to the ground and tumbled to a stop at my feet, his chair a pile of wreckage behind him. "Would it have killed _you _to just hold still, Merak?" I groaned. No one should have been able to survive that attack. I definitely had to get stronger in every way if I wanted to do this again.

"Uh, _yes_, yes it would have! Now I'm actually serious!" This was the first time Merak had actually raised his voice, but I wasn't worried anymore.

"You know what else would kill you?" I asked offhandedly, raising my beam sword.

Staring at the glowing crimson death over his head, Merak squeaked, "Is it a beam sword?"

"Well, yeah." I brought down the sword, and finally dealt a fatal blow to Merak. I expected blood to pour out of the trench I'd carved from his hair to his waist, but instead the wound began to bubble with noxious black ooze. I jumped back as the gunk expanded into a roughly spherical ball of concentrated black and blue grossness, but still got splattered when Merak exploded. "Gross gross gross!" I tried to rub the slime off my arms, but it rose off on its own and collected as several blue sparks, reforming into Merak's Glaive. I saw metal chunks fall off the Unwavering Spirit and hit the floor, but most of the Glaive teleported away in a stream of blue light, headed back to Sumeragi's storage facility.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

I shuddered as the full impact of what I'd done hit me. "Okay, I thought it was bad enough I had to kill a guy I probably could have gotten along with under different circumstances. Then he basically turned into a demon and sicced his flying robot throne on me, and then the way he died was just...ew." Then I thought back to how I acted myself. "I was pretty callous with him, bad guy or not. I need to figure out how I really feel about all this stuff and now I'm back in the starting elevator room." I suddenly noticed the drastic change of scenery and the sound of cars from outside the facility. "Nice of him to leave that escape wormhole there. Or maybe he just made the whole room, and killing him pulled me out of it? Now I _really_ feel bad about killing the guy." Still, I could pretty much call this a successful mission. I called up QUILL. "Lu here. I cleaned out the base, but there's no nuclear sub down there."

"You're positive there's no target?" Moniqa responded.

"Pretty much. The whole base was a trap set up by Merak, an adept in some elite group called the 'Sumeragi 7.' He didn't catch me in it, though."

"Has Merak been terminated?" Asimov asked.

"Well, to put it clinically, yes. He turned into a giant ball of slime and exploded. His Glaive broke, but Sumeragi swept up most of the bits."

"That matches our experiences when Gunvolt fought their lesser officers. Good work, Lu. Return to base and get some rest. Asimov, out." The radio fell silent.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

I returned to QUILL by the rooftop route and reported to the Operations Room. Zeno was there waiting for me. "Hey, Lu! I hear you beat one of Sumeragi's top brass on your very first mission!" He clapped me on the back.

"Are the 'Sumeragi 7' that important?" I wondered.

"'Important' is an understatement." Asimov spoke up. He was actually smiling, which was the first time he'd broken his poker face since I'd met him. "They're the top officers in the branch of Sumeragi that runs this country. There are seven of them, of course-well, six now-and they're among the strongest adepts in the world. I admit, I'm surprised you could even handle one by yourself. This mission has been one of the greatest successes QUILL has ever enjoyed, even if there wasn't any submarine to destroy." Something was bugging me about that smile Asimov gave me, but I convinced myself it was just lingering paranoia from being depressed.

It did seem strange that I'd apparently defeated one of Sumeragi's strongest warriors. "I guess I was lucky to fight the least motivated man in the world. He called himself the Slothful Conjurer, and he had his robot chair do the fighting just because he would rather be playing video games. Did you get any video from the fight?"

"No, you had your datapad off for most of the mission. Next time, leave it on; there's no need to worry about batteries when we could be getting useful footage." Asimov ordered. "As for the 'Slothful Conjurer', there is a rumor that the Sumeragi 7 each epitomize one of the seven deadly sins spoken of in the Bible. You might not have fared so well against the Burning Wrath."

"Yeah, I need to work out some more. I'm not satisfied with my strength, endurance, or Septimal power, and I need to get up to snuff fast." I slumped a bit. "Right now, though, I'm beat. Permission to go to bed for a few hours?"

"Granted. Take as much rest as you need; you've earned it. Leave the bombs with Zeno; we can re-use them later." Asimov turned back to his console, indicating that I was dismissed.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

I wandered back to my bunk and flopped down on the bed without removing my armor. I couldn't zonk out yet, though. I kept picturing Merak's demonic eyes, locked in their last expression of terror. Then a rising tide of foaming black gunk started to cover me...

I was thankfully startled awake from the nightmare I hadn't noticed was starting by a knock from outside my room. I dragged myself out of bed and opened the door to reveal Zeno. I waved him in. "Hey, Zeno. What brings you here?"

Zeno grinned for a second, but then put on a more sober expression. "I actually wanted to know if you wanted to talk. You know, about...killing Merak."

I froze for a second. "Do you mean tactically? There was this thing he did where he negated two hits that should have killed him with purple flashes..."

"No, you'd be better off telling that stuff to Moniqa or the boss man. The part I wanted to talk about was... This is the first time you've killed someone on purpose. Rebel militia members get PTSD, too, you know. I don't want you to end up shell-shocked."

I was silent for a second, then sat down on the bed. "I...guess I came pretty close before you showed up. I keep seeing Merak's expression from right before he died."

Zeno sat down next to me. "It's not easy to kill people, especially when you can put a face and personality to them. You should be worried if it _does_ get easier."

"I'm already worried about that. During the fight, I said some pretty cruel things. I called him a 'casual noob' for playing _Realms of Roboquest_, but it turns out he also played the same hardcore games as me. I think I remember Merak's name holding third place on the _Solid Stealth III _online leaderboards, actually. And I taunted him before I finished him off. I'm worried I'll end up being, I don't know, evil. I don't want to be someone who just randomly kills people."

"If it helps at all, Merak _was_ the top strategist responsible for three separate purges of innocent adepts. Sumeragi called them 'mass collections', but it was really genocide. He couldn't have been allowed to live, not after crimes like those." Zeno patted my shoulder, but I just slumped a bit lower.

"It's not that simple, though. Talking to him, I felt like I could have gotten along with Merak if we hadn't been fighting on opposite sides of a war. We could have even been friends, playing games together. Sumeragi was just the path of least resistance to him; following orders takes less willpower than fighting for what's right. And I laughed at him and killed him. I didn't try to negotiate, I didn't try to talk it out to avoid a fight. I just went straight to using my weapons and killed him." Jam it, now I was crying.

"I don't know how I can make you feel better, Lu. He wouldn't have listened; you just said why. But wars always end up putting everyone involved through jitt like that. It only gets worse the longer we fight, too. But the fastest way to end the fighting is to kill the other side, and not only is that more evil we can't avoid, we just don't have the firepower to fight them directly." Now even Zeno looked gloomy.

"So what are we even doing? Are we holding out for some kind of miracle?"

"That's part of it. It's also the principle of the thing, though. Whether we beat them or not, we can't just _not_ fight them. They're doing horrible things, and I can tell you from experience that most of them are horrible people. Merak being mostly bearable was the exception, not the rule. Taking people like those out of power is our duty as moral people. But we do end up having to kill them." Zeno shook his head, then put on a cheesy grin. "Man, I suck at inspirational speeches, don't I?"

I chuckled a bit despite myself. "It didn't sound much like you, that's for sure. Did Asimov come up with most of that speech?"

"Yeah, pretty much word for word. The boss man's a real inspiration to QUILL. This motivational speech is trademarked to Asimov, all rights reserved." Zeno did an impression of a deep commercial narrator voice, and I giggled with more authenticity. "Anyway, you said you play video games, Lu?" Zeno asked suddenly.

"Yeah. I'm still the number one worldwide champ at _Solid Stealth III_'s time trials. I play some _Blue Bomber _games, too, and I was a finalist in a _Super Crash Masters_ tournament at school last month. Why do you ask?"

"Well, it's your lucky day! I keep a bunch of games in my room! I've got a PS6, an Xbox I, and a Gamesphere, not to mention my extensive collection of manga comics and anime box sets."

"Wow, that's a lot of stuff to pack into a room like this! You're a total otaku, huh?" I gave him a friendly poke.

"Kinda, yeah. Want to come over and play a round or two? We can play some _Super Crash Masters 4_... For Merak. If it helps."

I suddenly realized what Zeno was doing. It was actually pretty touching. "I'd like that. Is it really okay for me to hang out in your room, though? We just met yesterday, after all..." I gave him a playful grin to show I was kidding.

Zeno laughed. "Oh, totally! Curfew's not until midnight. I look forward to beating the bloody tar out of your character." He remarked in a gentlemanly manner as he got up and led the way out of my room.

"And I look forward to sending your fighter into orbit in convenient bite-sized chunks," I laughed as we entered Zeno's room. As he'd said, the place was piled high with animated media, but there was a relatively clear set of paths among the piles, leading from the door to his double bunk bed and the large viewscreen hanging on the opposite wall.

"Welcome to the man cave! The silver lining to Geeves jumping ship is that I get the whole room to myself! I used to have to keep the half of the floor by the bed clear, even though Geeves never left any of his stuff sitting out. Anyway, I'll fire up the Gamesphere." Zeno sauntered over to the viewscreen and started pushing buttons on a couple remote controls.

"I can't for the life of me imagine why Gunvolt would want the floor clear," I sarcastically commented as the title screen gave way to the character select screen.

"Me neither. Get your head in the game, Lu! I'm a godjam pro at this game!" Zeno picked Ultra Man X as his character.

"I'll be sure to show you what that word means," I boasted as I picked Maverick Buster Zero. Zeno selected a nice flat stage with no distractions, and the battle began.

To his credit, Zeno knew how to keep his distance to take advantage of Ultra Man X's many ranged attacks, but I had practice with several defensive tricks to weather the storm of projectiles and get in close to pummel him with the Z-Saber. I'd actually gotten my love of swords, and specifically beam swords, from this particular character. I'd spent a long time learning the ins and outs of both virtual Crash battles and real beam fencing, and it showed as I chased Zeno's character all over the screen by knocking him around, then blasted him off the top of the screen, just as I'd suggested before we started. Zeno groaned as the un-skippable victory pose played out on the results screen, ending with the elite Maverick Buster teleporting away.

"I give up, Lu. You are indeed a greater pro than me at this game! Thanks for the lesson." He extended his hand for me to shake.

I shook his hand, then pulled him into a hug. "You're welcome, Zeno. I really want to thank you, though. You really went out of your way to make me feel better."

Zeno looked a bit rattled for a moment, then returned the hug. "I'm glad you noticed! Did it work?"

"Yeah, I feel better now." I released him from the hug. Judging by the way he rubbed his sides, I'd hugged him a bit too hard.

"That's great. I felt like someone had to do it, and that someone has to be me, because Moniqa and the boss man tend to focus so much on the goals of QUILL that they don't leave any time for fun. Asimov especially. He tends to not address feelings at all on missions, which might have something to do with why Geeves left like he did. That Joule girl really needed a hug. You did, too, and since Geeves wasn't here to give you one, well... Here I am."

"Again, thanks. Speaking of scary stuff, though, how did your mission go today? Did you see any creepy Sumeragi experiments or crazy adepts trying to gack with your head?"

"Nope. I just waltzed into the empty warehouse, found out there was a secret basement, placed a jitt-ton of explosives to help Geeves break in later, and waltzed back out. Easy peasy."

I pouted for comedic effect. "Well, lucky you. _I_ got to deal with two invisible wormhole traps that sucked me into the middle of a bunch of guards for fifteen seconds each, a flooding room that almost drowned me, and then I almost got fried when Merak bounced his Lazy Laser around the room. I'm not looking forward to doing that again, for a number of reasons."

"Don't go slipping back, now," Zeno warned.

"Don't worry. I'm not about to forget about it, but I can keep going." I got up and went to the door. "Thanks for having me over. I hope we can hang out again tomorrow!" I went off to my room, and actually got ready for bed this time. I fell asleep easily, and dreamed of my Dream Roster for _Super Crash Masters 5_.

**GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG**

_A/N: Yes, all the video game titles here are obvious plays on real video games. On that note, I need to give the standard boilerplate Useless Legal Disclaimer._

_Useless Legal Disclaimer: I, the fanfiction author operating under the alias "mysteriousguy898", do not own any characters, scenarios, or other concepts from the video game _Azure Striker Gunvolt_. Those belong to Keiji Inafune and the team at Inti Creates. I have a few OCs in this story, but most of them are made up by my brother who goes by the alias "FierceDeityMask." (You'll see those guys soon, probably in the next chapter. Check out my brother's page, too; he makes excellent poetry.) Any references to real video games are made for non-profit purposes, and those games belong to their respective owners. Seriously, if I had enough money to be worth suing over this fic, I'd be making my own games and failing to market them on Kickstarter myself._


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